BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Superpower Nuclear Confrontation: A Thriller, but Real

By RICHARD C. HOLBROOKE

Published: October 15, 2004

High Noon in the Cold War
Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis
By Max Frankel
206 pages. Ballantine Books. $23.95.

Do we need yet another book on the Cuban missile crisis? Is there anything new to say about the most studied event of the cold war? And does it have any relevance to the post-9/11 world?

In the hands of Max Frankel, who covered the crisis in October 1962 for The New York Times, the answer to all three questions is a resounding yes. For those too young to remember the only direct nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, Mr. Frankel's short and graceful account is an excellent introduction to a vital part of our recent past. For those already steeped in missile crisis lore, Mr. Frankel offers new insights based on his personal memories and newly available archives.

And for those wondering about the relevance of a cold war crisis, consider some of the many contrasts with Iraq, which, while never mentioned by the author, jump out of his narrative:

*In 1962, unlike 2003, there really were weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear missiles were being secretly placed off Florida by a dangerous adversary seeking a fundamental change in the balance of power.

*In 1962, unlike 2003, American intelligence and analysis was excellent. High-altitude photographs found and identified the missiles before they were deployed.

*When Adlai Stevenson presented the evidence to the United Nations Security Council, the world accepted America's word and its photographs without question. (This precedent led the Bush administration to its ill-fated decision to seek an ''Adlai moment'' at the United Nations in February 2003.)

*In 1962, as in 2003, the president was under intense pressure from some members of his Cabinet to take pre-emptive military action, but, unlike 2003, President Kennedy saw the threat of force primarily as a tactical device to achieve a political solution.

*In 1962, unlike 2003, Washington mobilized the United Nations and NATO into a coalition that isolated its adversary.

In the spring of 1962, Nikita S. Khrushchev gambled that he could sneak nuclear missiles into Cuba and hide them ''unnoticed among Cuba's majestic palm trees.'' It was, Mr. Frankel observes, ''worthy of the horse at Troy.'' But within hours after the missiles were discovered by a U-2 overflight on Oct. 15, 1962, President Kennedy decided that the deployment of such weapons was unacceptable.

During the first week of the crisis, no one but a small group of advisers known as the Executive Committee, or ExCom, knew about the missiles. The importance of this total secrecy cannot be overestimated; a rush to action under public pressure could easily have resulted in a catastrophic mistake. With great self-control, the 44-year-old president absented himself from many of the ExCom meetings to allow freer debate, but he was kept informed by his brother Robert, then attorney general, and by Theodore C. Sorensen, his brilliant alter ego, who drafted many key public statements and private messages during the crisis.

Importantly, the secret held -- with an assist from The Washington Post and The Times, which both figured out what was going on a day or two before Kennedy was scheduled to make his address to the nation. They both agreed, after personal requests from Kennedy, not to print the story. (Mr. Frankel recalls listening in as the president pleaded with The Times's Washington bureau chief, James Reston, not to publish what they knew.) It was, given the stakes, the correct decision.

From material that has become public since the cold war (including remarkable secret tape recordings President Kennedy himself made of the ExCom deliberations), it is clear that, once he was caught red-handed, Khrushchev realized that the Soviet Union would have to back down. But he was not sure he could control his own military, which was more belligerent than he was.

Kennedy, to achieve his goal -- a withdrawal of all offensive weapons from Cuba without the use of force -- put together what Frankel calls a well-concocted ''brew of dire threat and prudent action'': a carefully calibrated naval blockade that gave Moscow several days to ponder the growing danger as their ships approached the quarantine line, and a very public movement of American troops to Florida to prepare for the possible invasion of Cuba.

As in other accounts, Mr. Frankel's Kennedy is the most careful person in the ExCom, always searching for a solution that would meet his absolute bottom line while giving Khrushchev a fig leaf to cover his retreat.

But what was that fig leaf? Although no one realized it at first, Kennedy himself had mentioned it before the missile crisis began: a pledge that the United States would not invade Cuba. When Fidel Castro and the Russians, in near panic, decided that the United States was indeed ready to use its overwhelming force if necessary, Khrushchev seized the no-invasion pledge as if it were a life preserver (which in a sense, it was) to ''disguise his retreat.''